Alto
by seano
Summary: The Nazis claim they are the master race, but is there something else behind their depravity and fanatical devotion to their cause? Denny Johnson, who fled North Dakota at the end of the war for a new life in Mexico City, gets a chance to strike a small blow against their rule over his former home.
1. Chapter 1

MEXICO CITY – 1962

Denny Johnson locked the door of his small office behind him, and stuffed his hands in the roomy pockets of his leather coat. It was always too hot to wear such a jacket, but it was how he felt most comfortable carrying his SIG P210 pistol. His right hand curled around the grip instinctively as he walked down the avenue. One could never be too careful.

His lungs burned with every breath. The air was thick with smog and soot, and a thin layer of grime seemed to coat every exposed surface. Nearly twenty years he had lived in this town, and he still wasn't used to it. The plains of North Dakota where he grew up seemed like they existed in a completely different world.

Johnson's office was located just a few blocks from the Zocalo in the center of the historic part of the city. The streets were always teeming, it seemed, between people with ad-hoc marketplaces on the sidewalk, panhandlers trying to scrape together a meager existence and socialist protestors trying to overthrow the government.

Weapons and drugs and spies and gangs were commonplace. Everything was subject to trade – your possessions, your knowledge, your beliefs, your life – and you never knew where the highest bidder was going to come from.

In the post-World War order, Mexico had a unique place. It was the only country in the world that held some sort of autonomy from both the Greater Nazi Reich and the Japanese Pacific States. Unlike the American Neutral Zone, which had devolved into a lawless set of fiefdoms without any central authority, Mexico's military government had managed to keep a tenuous hold on power, and through careful negotiations with the Germans and Japanese had managed to bring everything north of Nicaragua and south of the Rio Grande under its control. Both the Reich and the Empire found it useful to have an area in which they could operate while maintaining plausible deniability about what they were actually doing.

Johnson was one of millions of Americans that had crossed the border in the immediate aftermath following the Nazi destruction of Washington D.C. He was just a 15-year-old boy then, the son of an engineer who had been discharged from the Army after losing part of his leg in Italy in 1943.

Black and Jewish people from across the country were most of that exodus early on, caravanning across Texas to try and beat the Nazi occupation forces that landed across the Eastern states following the 1945 surrender.

Johnson kept his head down for most of his 15-minute walk. As he rounded the corner for the last block of his journey, he relaxed slightly. He flipped Vincente, the kid who ran the newsstand, a coin and grabbed the top copy of _La Prensa_ off the pile on the sidewalk.

"Gracias," he said with a smile, folding the paper and stuffing it under his arm.

A few steps later, he popped open the door of Café Americano, a pleasant spot that sat on the ground level of Johnson's apartment building. As the name implied, the restaurant served a more Americanized diner-style menu and had developed a cadre of regulars – most of whom had also fled to Mexico at war's end. He walked to the back and took his customary table in the corner, placing his back to the wall so he could see the front door.

Maria, who owned the café with her husband (and cook) Julian, met Johnson at the table with a bottle of Coca-Cola.

"What can I get you, Denny?" she asked in her heavily-accented English.

"Hot beef commercial," he replied. It had been his dad's favorite meal, and he always ordered it when he needed a reminder of home.

"You're too predictable," Maria chided him as she walked back towards the kitchen. "I knew it the second you walked in the door."

Johnson took a long sip of the Coke. Mexico, he had heard, was the last place in the world you could get Coke with the original recipe, as the Nazis had stolen the logo and marketing but replaced the product with German-created Afri-Cola. The café was quiet tonight, just one man sitting at the counter. The man looked over his shoulder and briefly made eye contact with Johnson, then went back to munching on his dinner. Johnson shifted in his chair so that the reflection of the blinking lights of the small movie theater marquee across the street were not a distraction.

The headline on the newspaper read 'REICH AND JAPAN LOCKED IN FUEL DISPUTE' in Spanish. He muttered an expletive under his breath. The Reich had turned off the spigot from the offshore oil fields they controlled in the Gulf of Mexico, and the cost of gasoline was increasing by the day. _Gonna cost me a small fortune_, he thought to himself.

He read the story, pulling out a small, well-worn paperback Spanish-English dictionary out of the inner pocket of his jacket when he met a word that he didn't understand, as he still wasn't fully fluent in the local language.

Maria soon arrived, sliding the plate of roast beef with rich gravy and creamy mashed potatoes in front of him.

"Bon Appetit," she said with a smile, and returned to the kitchen.

Johnson caught the eyes of the man at the counter looking his way again. It struck him as odd.

"Can I help you with something?" he called out.

The man got up, and cautiously walked towards Johnson's table. Johnson's hand instinctively went to his coat pocket.

"You're Denny Johnson, right?" the man asked nervously.

"Who's asking?"

"My friend told me that I might be able to find you here. Said you might be just the person to help me."

"Who's your friend?"

"From Denver. Wyatt Price."

Johnson paused for a moment, then a sly grin crossed his face for just a second.

"Why didn't you say so? Take a seat."


	2. Chapter 2

Johnson released the grip on the pistol and brought his hands back up to the table. The man sitting across from him looked a few years older. He was skinny, almost gaunt, with a deep scar starting near his right ear that followed the jawline for a bit before dropping down the side of his neck. His hair was messy, with flecks of gray starting to filter through the brown.

"My name is Gordon," the man said. "Gordon Williams. You can call me Gordy if you want. Originally from Philly. Now from anywhere ... or nowhere."

"So how do you know Wyatt?" Johnson asked.

"I guess you could say we're in the same business," the man responded. "The same business you're in. Knowing things. Knowing people. Moving things from here to there."

"Logistics, yeah. That's right. I've got four trucks and a good crew of drivers."

"It's more than that, though, isn't it? Wyatt told me you could get just about anything just about anywhere."

"Maize and cotton, sure. Agriculture is my specialty."

Johnson was going to slow-play the conversation until he knew more about this stranger.

"What about non-agricultural products?"

"Well, that all depends. Did you have something in mind, specifically?"

Williams leaned in conspiratorially.

"Wyatt told me what happened to your dad during the war," he said. "Don't you want to stick it to those pricks, at least in some way?"

"The war's over. This is the new world and it's theirs. I'm just trying to make it to tomorrow."

"Let me tell you a story. Then you can give me an answer."

Johnson stuffed a forkful of mashed potatoes in his mouth and leaned back in his chair.

"OK, Gordy," Johnson said. "Let's hear it."

"I was in the 1st Infantry Division during the war. We were among the first to hit the beaches in Normandy in 1944. Like lambs to the slaughter. They told us before that they expected a fatality rate of 30%. We lost 70% in the first two hours alone. The rest of us were stuck down there, targets in the shooting gallery.

"Within 12 hours we had established ourselves on the beach and had somewhat defensible positions, but even with reinforcements coming in, we hadn't accomplished any of our objectives.

"Three days passed of being in the stalemate, under a constant barrage of shells and machine gun fire. My lieutenant, well I think he kind of cracked a little bit. He set out with a group of eight of us to try an assault on the mortar that was on the bluff just above us.

"It was a long shot, but about the only shot we had. Three of us got picked off before we even made it halfway up the bluff. But the rest of us – six in total – made it to the mortar position. There were three guns up there, that had been firing constantly for the entire time we had been on the beach. We figured there would be dozens of soldiers there – each gun took two people to fire, plus there had to be a security detail. Figure a couple shifts of each, and you get to 20-30 soldiers in a hurry. Know how many were actually there?"

"I don't know. 50?"

"Ten."

"Ten?"

"Ten zombies."

"Zombies? What do you mean?"

"They were drugged out of their minds. The Nazis fed their troops a drug called Pervitin. It's a kind of drug called a methamphetamine."

"Like speed?"

"That's similar, but less potent. Pervitin, at the doses they were taking, kept them awake for days on end. It keeps you awake but your body still feels the fatigue. After a while, your body just essentially runs on the drug while your mind just goes away. That's why I described them as zombies."

"Damn."

"No kidding. When we stormed their position, they were so zoned out, we were able to capture the position easily."

"OK, what does that have to do with me?"

"I'm getting there. Our victory was short-lived. Within hours, we were captured by German reinforcements and taken to Stalag 5A, just north of Stuttgart. It was there that I was personally introduced to Pervitin.

"What I found out is that Stalag 5A was used as a laboratory for experimentation with methamphetamines. They fed it to us and marched us around the perimeter of the camp until we collapsed from exhaustion."

"That's insane."

"I was a chemistry major in college, and I interned at Wyeth – they were the ones who made Anacin, so I quickly understood what was going on. I started asking the doctors who were administering the drug to us questions about it. My family is German – our family name was Wilhelm before changing it at Ellis Island. I ended up developing a sort-of friendship with one doctor, who would explain to me what they were doing, how this compound was different than the last one, that sort of thing. I know it was kind of perverse, but I wanted to know what they were doing to us and I hoped that maybe I might get some sort of mercy down the road."

"And?"

"Well, after the Nazis dropped the bomb on Washington, they quickly moved to clean up the prisoner camps. Those that had suffered permanent disability as a result of the experiments would just disappear from the camps overnight. My doctor friend offered me an opportunity to avoid that fate by coming to work for him at Temmler, the company that made Pervitin. I felt guilty about it then and feel even worse about it today. I was the only one out of that group of six that stormed that mortar position who left Stalag 5A alive."

"Shit."

"Yeah. I worked at Temmler for ten years as a sort of prisoner. They didn't experiment on me anymore, but I experimented on others. For a while, I tried to forget what I did. But now, I embrace it. It's what drives me – drives me to atone for what I've done."

"My mom chose to stay in North Dakota at the end of the war, while my dad and I left. I can't even talk to her or my sister any longer. Their brain is gone, corrupted. Everyone reacts in a different way. It seems you were able to get out, so good on you for that."

"I learned a lot, and one of the things I learned was their hypocrisy," Williams was growing more intense. "On the streets of Berlin, they catch you selling a pill, you'll get sent to the re-education camp. But the army, the Luftwaffe, the navy – all junkies on this stuff. And even worse – the very highest leaders of the Reich are all hooked."

"Come on, that's nonsense."

"It's not! Goring was addicted to morphine. Himmler, Bormann, Goebbels – even Hitler himself – all on pills or injections or concoctions of some sort!"

"But that's impossible. Wouldn't someone have figured this out by now?"

"Well, perhaps. All I knew was that they grew the plants – opium, primarily – used to create these compounds somewhere in North America. I figured it had to be in the American South. So after 10 years, I asked to be allowed to go home, and to my great fortune they let me go. I've spent the last seven years trying to find out where they grow this stuff. And now, I've figured it out."

Williams pulled out a map and a pen. Slamming the map on the table in front of him, he quickly circled a spot and then slid it across to Johnson. Johnson looked at it quizzically.

"Here in Mexico?"

"Here in Mexico! It's perfect! No one back home in Germany will ever know, and even if someone does try to say something, it can be explained away as Japanese propaganda."

Williams had circled the town of Linares, not too far from Monterrey, in the northeast portion of the country, not too far from Texas.

"Let's say you're right. What am I supposed to do about it?"

"You're going to help with some … logistics."


	3. Chapter 3

NORTH DAKOTA – 1945

The radio crackled to life with the voice of Eric Sevareid filling the room. Sevareid was the pride of Velva, a city in the north-west part of the state, and was therefore the new reporter they trusted the most.

_"… the attack on Washington, D.C. was with a type of weapon long theorized about but not believed feasible yet, a device called a hydrogen bomb. We are just moments away from an address by the new President of the United States, Sam Rayburn of Texas. We are told the President and Vice President have been killed in the attack, which leaves the Speaker of the House of Representatives as next in the line of succession._

_"OK, we are ready. President Rayburn is approaching the microphone here in Baltimore."_

An unfamiliar voice with a distinctive twang came next.

_"My fellow Americans, I am Sam Rayburn, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives who was inaugurated as President of the United States just hours ago. My sad first duty is to notify you of the events of the day. This morning, the United States was attacked with a weapon of previously unseen force and power. Our capital, Washington D.C., has essentially been destroyed. President Bricker and Vice President Dewey have perished in this attack. Most of the Congress of the United States has perished as well. While it is early, it is clear that the death toll of this attack numbers several hundred thousand souls._

_"After the attack, the Nazi regime presented credible evidence to Allied leadership in London that they possess more of these weapons and the means to deliver them to targets across the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Canada._

_"I have consulted with our military leaders, Generals Eisenhower, Marshall, and MacArthur; as well as remaining Congressional leaders including Senator Hill of Alabama and Representative White of Maine. Additionally, I have spoken directly with Prime Minister Churchill and Prime Minister King, as well as representatives of the government of the Soviet Union._

_"We have come to the inescapable conclusion that continuing this war would cause the needless loss of millions of more lives. There is only one responsible course of action left to us. As such, we have offered our unconditional surrender. I will be traveling to Paris tomorrow to meet with our fellow Allied leaders to formally sign the armistice and discuss transition plans with Chancellor Hitler. …"_

Dennis Johnson, Sr. groaned loudly as he gripped the arms of the chair to push himself up. He balanced on his right leg and picked up the wooden crutch that was propped up on the end table, jabbed it under his left arm and began to cross the living room.

His fifteen-year-old son, affectionately called Denny by his friends and Junior by his family, felt the swish of the empty left pantleg as his Dad passed by. Junior looked over at his mom, Millie, and his younger sister, Susan sitting on the couch across from him. Mom was bawling. Susan was wide-eyed.

Dad reached the table and clicked off the tabletop RCA radio. The gentle yellow glow of the dial faded out, and the room fell silent.

"Go to your rooms, kids," Dad growled. "Your mother and I have some things to talk about."

* * *

"What's a hydrogen bomb?" Susan asked, and she flopped down on the end of Junior's bed.

"I don't know," Junior responded. "Must be bad, though."

"What's going to happen now?"

"I don't know."

Junior crept over to the bedroom door and peered through the small crack. He could see a sliver of his mom, sitting at the dining room table. They were talking anxiously, but he couldn't make out what they were saying.

* * *

"We've got to go," Dennis said.

"Go where?" Millie responded.

"I don't know. But we can't stay here. We can't live under them."

"Why not? You've got German blood. My family is Norwegian and Swedish. We'll be fine."

"No, we won't. Trust me."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean? Did you forget why I don't have my leg? We know what they did to those who were injured, even their own soldiers – they just killed them! We know they kill those with health problems. Jews, too. Anyone who fails their standard in any way."

"But we won't be at war with them anymore. Surely they won't continue doing that."

"The Nazis aren't normal. They just wiped Washington D.C. off the map. Hitler is an exterminator."

"I'm not going, Dennis. This is our home."

"We can't stay," he paused, the reality of what he was about to say hitting hard. "I can't stay. I won't stay. And if you won't come with me, I'll go on my own."

"But what about the kids?"

"I'll bring them with me."

"You can't!"

"Denny can choose. He's old enough."


End file.
